Grandiose Thoughts

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

When I begin to reflect upon the Creativity
& Multicultural Communication course, it was a steep learning curve for me.
As I come to the close of my journey with this course I wish I would have contributed
more to the overall direction of the coursework. Since we began this semester my
life has been crazy. I began to pastor a church in the Philadelphia suburbs in February
and I did not anticipate how much my life would change. My schedule has been
insane and my focus has not always been where it should have been. But one
thing out of the many things I have learned in this unorthodox course is that
Communication is multifaceted. I have always understood that being husband and
father but I took on a brand new meaning since I became a pastor. Everyone does
not possess the same communicative skill set. In our communicating we bring all
our experiences and the diversity of experiences. So there can be a great chasm
between what is said and what is heard.

While I Tweet and Facebook for my own
entertainment purposes, I had a difficult time grasping using those mechanisms
as “textbooks” for learning. I have always tried to keep my academic life and
social networking life complete separate. This class shattered my ideology.
This class taught about the connectivity of communication. There doesn’t have
to be compartmentalization of how we communicate.

Lastly, this class caused me to start blogging again.
My wife always encouraged me to share my perspective with whatever audience that
would listen. I was hesitant but through this class I had the opportunity to
share some of my views and I got some google feedback. (Especially while
venting about my struggles with the class LOL.) This class was extremely
different for me and I would take this again. The key is to stay engaged. Communication
means noting if all parties are not engaged. It doesn’t matter if your
Tweeting, Facebooking, blogging, or having Google hangouts. Engagement is
crucial. #CMC11

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

The story of is told of an eight year old boy
who looked forward to Saturday because his father promised to take him fishing,
weather permitting. But Saturday morning dawn rain and dreary, and it appeared
that the rain would continue throughout the day. The child moped around the
house, looking out the windows and grumbling, “It seems the Lord could have chosen
a better to make it rain.” His father tried to explain how badly the rain was
needed but the son was adamant. “It just isn’t right the son repeated. By
mid-afternoon the rain had stopped. The boy and his father quickly loaded their
gear into the car and headed off to the lake. As anticipated, the fish were
biting and they came home with a cooler full of fish. There were flounder, trout,
bass, and kinds of fish. At dinner, when some of the fish were served, the boy’s
mother asked him to say grace. He did and concluded his prayer by saying, “And
Lord, if I sounded grumpier earlier it was because I couldn’t see far enough
ahead.

There is something
to be said about the ability to look ahead. Looking ahead causes you to
have something to look forward too instead settling for what's you
already have. Looking ahead allows us to get a sneak peak, a glimpse
into the larger picture. In order to look ahead one must have vision and
not just sight. It’s easy to be held captive by what’s
happening now when can’t see far enough ahead. When you have the ability to anticipate
what’s up ahead, it will empower you to hold out until your change comes. And
that’s the great differential between having sight and having vision.Sight can only see what can be seen but vision
can see what can’t be seen. Sight can only show you what is but vision can show
what shall be. And your gonna need vision if you’re going the face the unknown.

This course has taught me to look up head even when I don't understand what I'm looking for or looking at. In this academic journey, I must continue to look up ahead. #CMC11

Monday, March 11, 2013

John and Joe are
construction workers and they decide to start eating lunch together. They agree
to meet at 12:00PM on Monday. They sit down and begin there to eat. John enjoys
his lunch but Joe is visibly upset. Joe says, “I hate peanut butter sandwiches”!!
The next day at 12:00PM they take out their lunches and began to eat. John
enjoys his lunch but Joe is visibly upset. Joe says, “I hate peanut butter
sandwiches”!! The next day at 12:00PM they take out their lunches and began to
eat. John enjoys his lunch but Joe is visibly upset. Joe says, “I hate peanut
butter sandwiches”!! This time John cannot take it anymore. He says to Joe, “We
don’t you ask your wife to make you something else for your lunch.” Joe
responds by saying, “Don’t bring my wife into this. I make my own sandwiches.”!

This course has challenged me
to learn to make my own educational sandwiches. I have decided to project my
thoughts via my blog more often. My wife often tells me that everything I write
can a dissertation. But that is not the point of creative communication. The point
of creative communication is to connect, inform, and inspire. The way how my mind
works can cause me to miss out on this. I read some of the other post and blog
entries and I must say that I think to myself that I am not measuring up. My specialty
would be to write research paper or an essay around race, religion, sports,
African-American history, pop culture, or music. But a fresh approach for me is
to simply engage in the process and not try to be so ahhhhhh I don’t know, you tell
me. #CMC11

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

This class and format is a trip!! Even though I am very
active on Twitter @thegroveness and on Facebook, connecting this to a curriculum
has been a tremendous learning curve for me. As a person who works within a structured
format, the fluidity of this course has been something else. At the beginning,
it was hard me for to imagine that my social media activity can be translated
into a seedbed for learning in the college setting. In reality, the social media
landscape is the new communicative space. It’s has changed the way we frame our
communication skills, relationship skills, and our cognitive abilities. I originally
viewed my social media as an outlet and completely separate from my academic life.
This independent study has taught me that social media and academics can be in
concert with one another. Instead of textbooks, lectures, syllabi, and research
papers, we blog, tweet, and facebook each other and this is the work of the
course. The theoretical approach of creative communication is what I expected
to be involved in. In this course, I jumped right into the praxis of the
creative communication. This kind of hands on learning has been beneficial for me
because it removed me form a place of academic familiarity. Even though I’m struggling, I think I get it